Life and Death are Wearing Me Out

overwhelmed all the putrid smells around me. I heard snores coming from the bedroom. Well, you’d finally managed to get some sleep. Your son woke up, his eyes heavy with sleep, and ran to the toilet; as I listened to the sound of him relieving himself, the smell of Pang Ghunmiao penetrated all the sticky, murky odors in the air and rapidly drew near, straight to our gate, without a moment’s hesitation. I barked once and then lowered my head, overcome by weighty emotions, a mixture of sadness and dejection, as if a giant hand were clamped around my throat.
    Ghunmiao rapped at the gate, a loud, determined, almost angry sound. Your wife ran out to open the gate, and the two women stood there staring at each other. You’d have thought there was no end to what they wanted to say, but not a word was uttered. Chunmiao stepped — dashed is more like it — into the yard. Your wife limped behind her and reached out as if to grab her from behind. Your son dashed out onto the walkway and ran around in circles, his face taut, looking like a boy who simply didn’t know what to do. In the end, he ran over and shut the gate.
    By looking through the window I was able to watch Chunmiao rush down the hallway and into your wife’s bedroom. Loud wails emerged almost at once. Your wife was next into the room, where her wails supplanted Chunmiao’s with their intensity. Your son was crouching alongside the well, crying and splashing water on his face.
    Once the women’s crying stopped, difficult negotiations began. I couldn’t make out everything that was said, owing to the sobs and sniveling, but picked up most of it.
    “How could you be so cruel as to beat him that badly?” Chunmiao said that.
    “Chunmiao, there’s no reason for you and me to be enemies. With all the eligible bachelors out there, why are you dead set on destroying this family?”
    “I know how unfair this is to you, and I wish I could leave him, but I can’t. Like it or not, this is my fate. . . .”
    “You choose, Jiefang,” your wife said.
    After a moment of silence, I heard you say:
    “I’m sorry, Hezuo, but I want to be with her.”
    I saw Chunmiao help you to your feet and watched as you two walked down the hall, out the door, and into the yard, where your son was holding a basin of water. He emptied it on the ground at your feet, fell to his knees, and said tearfully:
    “Don’t leave my mother, Papa . . . Aunty Chunmiao, you can stay . . . your grandmothers were both married to my grandfather, weren’t they?”
    “That was the old society, son,” you said sorrowfully. “Take good care of your mother, Kaifang. She’s done nothing wrong, it’s my doing, and though I’m leaving, I’ll do everything in my power to see you’re both taken care of.”
    “Lan Jiefang, you can leave if you want,” your wife said from the doorway. “But don’t you forget that the only way you’ll get a divorce is over my dead body.” There was a sneer on her face, but tears in her eyes. She fell as she tried to walk down the steps, but she scrambled to her feet, made a wide sweep around you two, and pulled your son to his feet. “Get up!” she growled. “No boy gets down on his knees, not even if there’s gold at his feet!” Then she and the boy stood on the rain-washed concrete beside the walkway to make way for you to leave.
    In much the same way that your wife had helped you walk from the gateway to her bedroom, Chunmiao tucked her left arm under yours, which hung loosely in front of her chest, and put her right arm around your waist, so the two of you could hobble out the gate. Given her slight figure, she seemed in constant danger of being knocked off balance by the sheer weight of your body. But she held herself straight and exerted strength that even I, a dog, found remarkable.
    A strange, inexplicable emotion led me up to the gate after you’d left. I stood on the steps and watched you go. You stepped in one mud puddle after another on Tianhua Avenue, and your white silk pajamas were mud-spattered in no time; so were Chunmiao’s clothes, a red skirt that was especially eye-catching in the haze. A light rain fell at a slant; some of the people out on the street were wearing raincoats, others were holding umbrellas, and all of them cast curious glances as you passed.
    Filled with emotion, I went back into the yard and straight to my kennel, where I sprawled on the ground and looked over at the east-side room. Your son was sitting on a